Unexpected
by TheWeasleyBoys
Summary: After the successful jailbreak, Wilhelm Wicki thought he'd have one more enemy soldier to kill. Instead, he would receive something so much more. [Not a romantic/feel-good story.]


**Author's Note:** This idea came to me in the early afternoon of the fourth of October, 2013...even though the original scene suggested it was all Stiglitz' way of complaining that he couldn't just plain rip Dietrich's throat out, somehow, the muses wanted to tell it otherwise.

I also didn't want to write this out considering I have so many other fan fictions left to complete...but, given that the Basterds fandom has _zero_ friendship stories, and given the fact that I'm also roleplaying out the dark, dramatic shenanigans of Gerold Hirschberg on Pandora, AND given the fact that this fandom seems to be my personal version of Bali'Hai from South Pacific...I could no longer be silent. So, without any further hesitation, I give you...

* * *

**Unexpected**

Part One: A Change of Plan

After staying alive for thirty years and working in a hospital for ten, there were days in which I believed I had seen all there was to see. If you stay in one place for as long as I have, I suppose things just start to blur together, and don't affect you as much as they did when you first began a new life in a different country. Things like...

The grief-stricken cries of a family after they lose a loved one to old age, or to disease, or to a horrible accident.

The screams of your patients as they beg, plead, _demand_ that you don't remove that useless limb.

The groans of a woman in childbirth and the wails of the infant that follows.

The nervous whispers of the sick after they take their medicines, or else coughing themselves into silence, or else whimpering in their sleep.

The gasp of pain that follows a shot of painkiller, or else the administering of a much-needed vaccine to keep the diseases away.

I faced all of these and several more during my time under that hospital's roof, and I have to admit, at one point all the sounds of sickness and recovery, injury and healing, birth and death just seemed to fade into the background. Someone in my field would have to let these sounds go there, I'm sure, especially if they did not wish to frighten their patients as well as themselves by losing control. Sooner or later, it all had to become meaningless noise, and for that not even the most violent accident or most bloody of operations could seem to faze me.

However, as life has a tendency to do to a fortunate handful of human beings, one day my beliefs in this matter were proven wrong.

Several nights after we'd undertaken a more violent approach to turn the tides of the war, somehow the war decided to turn in on itself and render up a former enemy for us to rescue. The idea of waltzing in unannounced to the gates of a German prison and then blasting our way inside was nothing but sheer _insanity_. First, there was no plausible way a group of ragtag fighters could take on some of the most experienced killers in all of Europe without taking a single bullet wound...except we did.

Second, there was also no way for the sole prisoner under their watch to listen to a word our Lieutenant said, not after at least four decades of desensitization, brainwashing, and downright indoctrination to believe that your way of life was the only way, and to hell with all of the others, even if that meant mass murder...except _he_ did.

And third, but most importantly, there was no way a group of men that might have otherwise fallen to this prisoner's blood lust could ever grow close to him, not when he had been their enemy exactly four hours before the rescue mission began. Not when his former associates wanted nothing more than to see their people burned to ashes. And definitely _not_ when one of the so-called rescuers still carried a memento of the family they had lost before their own escape.

Those were the thoughts I kept fresh in my mind shortly after one of the younger Basterds, a slightly immature case known by the surname Hirschberg, managed to notice blood stains on the back of Stiglitz' shirt. In spite of how he had come out dressed entirely in black, the blood left streaks on the back of the transport truck, which meant that I had to somehow push my way past the others without falling down, and then tend to whatever injuries he might have sustained at the hands of his jailers. As much as I believed in the words 'Do No Harm', however, tonight I wanted nothing more than to make an exception.

Only ten minutes had passed since we'd taken off into the shadows once more, so to me, this 'Feldwebel' still had plenty of time to lead us all into a death trap. I couldn't help but wonder why he had been so calm in the midst of his captors being slaughtered right in front of him. I had also found it unsettling that he didn't flinch once at the sight of us, neither at the presence of foreigners or the so-called 'vermin' that he had been ordered to wipe out. For all I knew, the killing of the Gestapo officers was nothing more than a ruse to draw us out of hiding, complete with several more of his comrades waiting around the corner to mow us down en masse. And so, until I could be sure this Stiglitz was all that he claimed to be, I planned to let him have a taste of his own medicine.

"_Hinlegen und halten immer noch._"

He laid down and kept still, all right. All the better to expose his wounds for treatment...or else receive one more that could take him out before he caused any more deaths. Had he made a different choice, he would have murdered even more people that share my culture, my faith...and to the farthest degree, my _blood_.

I didn't hesitate to repeat this idea over and over in my mind as I started cutting away the bloody shirt, beginning with the sleeves and then slicing open the fabric somewhere around the center. I had no problems ignoring the way its former owner flinched as I peeled the soaked pieces away from his skin. He was nothing to me at that moment, and I did not yet see a time where that would change. In fact, I almost pretended to have my hand slip while holding my Bowie knife, to very nearly make short work of this 'patient's' jugular vein—but a few of the younger ones, maybe Kagan and Zimmerman, were already watching my progress with mild curiosity.

_My older brother, Yosef, was watchful once, too. Watchful enough to see _**them**_ coming and to make sure I left town before the killing started. I wish I could have watched out for him sometimes..._

Would they have noticed if I were to kill Stiglitz right on the floor of this truck? Would they have jumped to conclusions and told everything to the Lieutenant once he had left the driver's seat? I couldn't tell. I couldn't tell because I didn't want to think about the consequences. Instead, I forced myself to concentrate on the task at hand, but not without using what was left of this shirt as washrags and bandages. They just might have come to good use once I had taken a good look at the damage.

_Bandages? Who said I wanted this prisoner's wounds to mend? Who said I even _**cared**_?_

I _didn't_ want to do this. I didn't want to feel a single drop of sympathy for this stranger, but the moment I saw the extent of his injuries, sympathy found me nevertheless. Someone had quite a bit of fun with the whip, and judging by the thinness of these lashes, they chose one specifically used to drive a team of horses on purpose. Most likely to send a message to the receiver, no doubt...not that this mattered to me. I was not the one guilty of a serial killing, or anything else that could have been labeled murder. It was the way in which the lashes were arranged to form long, gaping cross shapes that concerned me. A lot of problems could have resulted if we hadn't found this man—infection, blood poisoning, death...

_Who are you?_

A part of me wished I could whisper this question to him, could ask him this in a way that no one else could hear, and that whatever answer he gave to me in return would be for my ears alone.

_Who are you? What did you do before the killing started? _**Why**_ did you come with us?_

Instead of my plan to kill Stiglitz and make it look like a medical error, these questions ended up overtaking my mind, and one by one gradually became my mantra instead. Nobody in this truck had any idea this man even existed until we read about him in the papers. Would we have even met if the local media hadn't decided to print the story? Would he have instead been one of our targets if things had gone a little differently? Were the other Basterds asking the same things that my mind asked my heart? Would they have dared to answer me if I had spoken up right then and there?

_Yosef never made a single page of a single newspaper. _**They**_ would never have allowed him to, not even as an obituary. Why, then, should someone else's fifteen minutes of fame affect me at all? Maybe he's not the rebel that the papers make him out to be. Maybe he was there when _**they**_ passed through our town originally, and had no second thoughts about ending Yosef's life with his bare hands. Maybe G-d Himself saved this stranger for me on purpose, so that I can indeed kill him without any shame and avenge my brother as well. Maybe it's not too late..._

"...I need some morphine."

Whatever plan I had been creating for this prisoner's 'accidental' demise vanished the moment my healer's instinct took over. My memories of Yosef must now be so weak as to need some other course of action to compensate for the way I could not save his life. I probably would have latched on to any other patients just as strongly if I—_we—_had not discovered this German locked out of sight and almost out of mind.

But what if this is exactly what this man had been planning all along? Play upon my sympathy, my loneliness, my need to help rather than harm—and _then_ stab me in the back once he either caught me fast asleep or with my back to the door?

There was a slight _brushing_ sound of leather across old metal, and I saw that Sakowitz had just slid my medical bag over to me. Inside was the necessary vial of morphine, along with a few sterilized syringes of varying sizes, two bottles of purified water, at least six packets of sulfa powder...and something _else_ buried underneath all of my other supplies, something that's been wrapped in brown paper and left tied up in cords for the past several years. I wouldn't dare let myself think about that last thing, not for more than a second, because there was no way I would fall apart in front of these other soldiers.

Instead, I brought out an old leather strap to tie off this patient's arm, picked up the smallest needle from my collection, and filled it up just enough before seeking out the first available vein. I had quite a lot of work to do.

* * *

Parting Thoughts: It occurred to me that a former Nazi suddenly teaming up with a Jewish resistance force would be nothing short of miraculous. It also occurred to me that, just maybe, someone who had witnessed the violent beginnings of the Holocaust firsthand wouldn't be so accepting of them at first, because after all, hatred can (and _will_) go both ways sometimes.

Anyways...I plan to do this as a two-parter, so...if you liked what you read, please leave some feedback in the little box below. Thank you and goodnight.

**=Weasley=**


End file.
